Book review: Paper: Paging Through
History, by Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky is well known as the author of
several books on seemingly narrow topics, such as
salt2 and the codfish,3 but which actually range
far and wide. Paper:Paging through Historyis
another of these. For instance, this book addresses the
histories of writing, printing, and paper, with the
thesis that more people were becoming literate, thus
requiring a practical writing material (paper), and
getting all those words onto the paper requiring
printing.

The book also discusses the histories of these topics in
the Far East, Middle East, Europe, and America, starting
in 3500 bce. The author also brings in his beliefs about
the ways of innovation: new technology doesn’t enable
societal changes so much as societal changes require
new technology, and new technology doesn’t drive out old
technology but rather the old continues to exist beside the
new. There is no doubt considerable truth to Kurlansky’s
assertions, but I see them as a little too black and white.

Since Kurlansky has written about 17 nonfiction books
on lots of different topics, he can hardly be an expert
on all of them and thus I doubt readers can assume
the book is precisely accurate at all times. Also, he was
a journalist for 15 years, and his books lie somewhere
between journalistic and academic studies.4 However,
even if Kurlansky glosses over some things or occasionally
makes a mistake, I see the book’s value as being an
easy to read, integrated introduction to the histories of
(a) paper and the methods of making it and its myriad
uses, (b) writing, materials upon which to write, and
substances for writing leading up to ink, and (c) printing.
It makes a lot of sense to treat these three areas together.

The book’s presentation is generally chronological.
However, with such a broad scope and so much to share
from his research—“Littered with facts”, is a blurb on
the book’s half title page by Lily Rothman in Time)—the
organization of the content into chapters seems a little
forced. Also, the chapter titles (e.g., “5: Europe between
two felts”, “15: Invitation from a wasp”) don’t help the
reader understand the structure of the book; they make
some sense after one has read a chapter—mostly not before.
Nevertheless, it is lots of fun to read all those tidbits and
to see the logical connections the author tries to make.

Here are some example bits of information.

Paper making
came late to Europe (1140–1400). Paper from
250 bce has been found in China; paper making
was spreading westward through Central Asia
and all the way to Egypt in the millennia prior
to reaching Europe; the Aztecs were writing
on something very much like paper when the
Spanish reached what is now Mexico. In China
paper was used for wrapping before it was used
for writing.

By the 13th century, high quality paper was
being made in the region of Fabriano, Italy.
Fabriano had long been a center for pounding
wool into felt, and it was easy to convert a felt
mill’s wool-pounding hammers into rag-beating
hammers for paper making.

In 1719 René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur’s
study of American Wasps, which make their
homes from a wood-based paper-like substance,
kicked off the eventual move to primarily
making paper from certain woods rather than
from old rags (which were getting scarce and
expensive). [The source of chapter 15’s title is
revealed.]

In the Revolutionary War between the original
U.S. colonies and Britain, paper was in short
supply in the colonies, but was necessary for
paper plugs to separate the gunpowder in its
firing chamber from bullets that shot out of
the colonists’ muskets. One historian to whom
Kurlansky refers has reported that “most of the
3,000-copy press run of Saur’s 1776 German
Bible was used to fire American muskets.”

In the early 20th century, book-length
“wordless books” were in fashion with the story
told completely with woodcuts.

In the 21st century, more than two millennia
after paper was first made in China, China is
again the largest producer of paper in the world.
It wanted to be the biggest and became the
biggest despite having to import much of the
material from which paper is made. More than
half of the world’s pulp for paper is imported
by China, and half of the world’s paper for
recycling is imported by China.

The thin seaweed sheets used to wrap sushi
are made the same way paper is made and
even fit the “randomly-woven-fibers” definition
of paper.

I had read a lot about the history of printing and a
book on the history of writing before reading this book
about paper; this book was a good reminder of that
prior knowledge while also telling me the fascinating
story of paper. I definitely recommend the book to
anyone who has not previously studied the history of
paper and its relationship to writing and printing,
including young people.

An aside. In these days of increasing home schooling I
think this book could be used to show the child and
parent the ways of innovation and how societal need
and technology are interleaved, as well as of course
conveying the specific histories of writing, paper, and
printing. The book also touches on environmental
and sustainability issues. Also, given the topics,
hands-on craft projects would be a natural adjunct to
studying the book. Certainly studying this book would
have been a lot more interesting than the standard
curriculum that I went through in my K-to-12 days in
California public schools.

The thought about home schooling came to mind because
late in the book the author mentions contemporary
users of paper including a move from origami as craft
to origami as sculpture (as shown in Figure 1). In this
context the author also mentions Eric Demaine, whose
Ph.D. thesis was a ground-breaking contribution to the
field of computational origami. Demaine was home
schooled: http://news.mit.edu/2003/demaine-0226.

The type note at the end of the book says the book was
set in Dante, designed by Giovanni Mardersteig in
1954.

nderneath that explanation, the note also says
the historical-initials-like images (a copy of one starts
this paragraph) at the beginning of the first paragraph
of each of the book’s almost twenty chapters are based
on an alphabet designed by Albrecht Durer in 1525 and
cut into linoleum by the book’s author. Missing from
this colophon is anything about the paper with which
the pages and cover of the book are made: weight, surface
finish, source mill or company, and so forth. Having read
this book by Kurlansky, I now believe colophons should
routinely talk about a book’s paper as well as its type.

Still, as befits a book on the history of paper, the
paperback cover is stylish. The title and author’s name
are nicely debossed into attractively rough cover paper.
I decided to buy the book the instant I glanced at it on
the bookstore’s new arrivals rack—and, having read it,
I am very glad I did.